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Cinnamon 1.4 Brings Back More GNOME2 Memories

03-15-2012, 09:00 AM

Phoronix: Cinnamon 1.4 Brings Back More GNOME2 Memories

Cinnamon, the project by the Linux Mint developers to make the GNOME Shell more like the old GNOME2 experience, is up to its version 1.4 release. Similar to earlier releases, version 1.4 introduces several new features to further enhance this tasty desktop experience...

Nice improvements Expo is nice. I really like that Cinnamon seems to be modeled to be more like a Compiz Desktop or MacOSX Desktop.... IMO Gnome (upstream) should have adopted this style, over GS. If they had, i suspect very few long time gnome-users would have had complaints about Gnome 3.0, on release.

great DE/WM, it will be interesting to see what it is like 6 months to a year from now. I could see Cinnamon gaining a lot of traction.

my 2 cents

EDIT: it's funny how the article is titled "Cinnamon 1.4 Brings Back More GNOME2 Memories" ~ when gnome2 never had scale or expo, that was compiz, all gnome2 had was transparency and shadows (via metacity). Maybe the article should have been called "Cinnamon 1.4 brings back more Compiz features", instead.

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EDIT: it's funny how the article is titled "Cinnamon 1.4 Brings Back More GNOME2 Memories" ~ when gnome2 never had scale or expo, that was compiz, all gnome2 had was transparency and shadows (via metacity). Maybe the article should have been called "Cinnamon 1.4 brings back more Compiz features", instead.

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This is really starting to look interesting! If they keep releasing every month, they're going to gather a following as well; release early and release often gets people excited! Small changes which gives the feeling of continuous development and new stuff to test out!

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I'd like to prefix this post with a saying that I once heard. "Nothing interests me more than my orgasm, and nothing interests me less than someone else's". My metaphorical orgasm consists of a dock at the bottom of the screen and a global menu at the top of the screen. OSX has these features. Ubuntu (default 3d desktop and hide the unity launcher) + cairo dock has these features. It's really nice.

Trying Mint and FC17 (Gnome3-extension-testing), I am currently unable to shape/bend either of these implementations into my ideal utopian desktop. At this point, I do not know whether I should suck-it-up and be a good citizen, or whether I should simply delete these VMs. Due to time and interest constraints, I'll probably do the latter.

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You should be able to put the cinnamon panel on the top (go to preferences->cinnamon settings in the menu, then open the panel item).

After you do that, <insert_favorite_dock> should work just fine, though I haven't tried myself.

I will take another peek, but last I tried, the panel did not integrate with the global-menu, and I ended up with two overlapping menus at the top of the screen and no real method of switching between the two. I guess I'm in the unfortunate/odd position of being someone that views the dash/launcher/start-menu as undesirable compared with a dock, and global-menu/panel integration as desirable when compared to individual menus and a panel full of applets + wasted space.

While I will not say that "Apple got it right", they certainly didn't get it nearly as wrong as the default implementations I'm seeing from Gnome, Mint, KDE, Unity (<--- Qar, this is an example of "Irony"), etc.

To those that disagree, give the following a try. Ubuntu, stock 3D session. Hide the Unity launcher via CCSM. Run cairo-dock (not a cairo dock session) on session startup. You can use the windows-key/super-key to bring up the dash if you need it. Simple to implement, easy to use, easy to revert if you hate it.

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I'd like to prefix this post with a saying that I once heard. "Nothing interests me more than my orgasm, and nothing interests me less than someone else's". My metaphorical orgasm consists of a dock at the bottom of the screen and a global menu at the top of the screen. OSX has these features. Ubuntu (default 3d desktop and hide the unity launcher) + cairo dock has these features. It's really nice.

Trying Mint and FC17 (Gnome3-extension-testing), I am currently unable to shape/bend either of these implementations into my ideal utopian desktop. At this point, I do not know whether I should suck-it-up and be a good citizen, or whether I should simply delete these VMs. Due to time and interest constraints, I'll probably do the latter.

F

If thats what you want why don't you run OSX? It sounds as if they have exactly what you want.
Tye reason why a lot of people don't choose OSX is b/c of its relative inflexibility on the UI side. I, hiwever, they have what you want, you, or Canonical, aren't going to be able to cobble ( and I use that word precisely since that's what Canonical is doing with "Unity") together a better implementation.

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If thats what you want why don't you run OSX? It sounds as if they have exactly what you want.

For the most part, I do. Unfortunately, work and projects/philosophy demand that I remain flexible and platform agnostic. The vast majority of the time, I find VMs to be suitable for productivity and experimentation.

With OSX, I find the simplified workflows are sufficient for home use. When I need something more flexible, or need to craft a custom workflow, I use Ubuntu (when I need a general purpose GUI) and RHEL/OEL (when I need a terminal that will accurately mimic the systems on which I am paid to work). Windows7 is what I use when I feel the desire to play 3D games. It's nice that WINE allows you to run games on different platforms, but I've never found it to be equivalent in terms of performance and stability to native applications, and I don't play to lose.

The whole linux-desktop-paradigm-shift thing has really confused me. Unity, in its current incarnation (launcher and dash) is really bad. Whenever I've spoken to someone that has liked Unity/Gnome-Shell, it always turns out that they had never used a dock before. Those that try a dock+globalmenu always seem to love it (wife, neighbor, in-laws, random associates on the internet). Though I have no horses in the desktop race, I did try to give gnome3 some time, and it just hasn't panned out.

Whenever someone asks me what I think or to lend a hand on a UI testing-weekend and document my findings, I feel as if I'm being asked by my wife "Do I look fat in this?".

Yes... Yes you do. Don't bother wasting your time testing. A solution to the issue is 7 clicks away.